A wireless communication device can transmit data over a data radio bearer established between the wireless communication device and a serving base station of a wireless network. In this regard, the data radio bearer can be established when the wireless communication device has data available to transmit, e.g., mobile originated data, or has data to receive from the wireless network, e.g., mobile terminated data. When the wireless communication device has an established active data radio bearer, the wireless communication device can operate in a radio resource control (RRC) connected mode, having an active RRC connection with the wireless network. A wireless communication device operating in the RRC connected mode can consume more power than when the device does not have an active RRC connection, resulting in an increased battery drain rate. Furthermore, when the wireless communication device operates in the RRC connected mode, an additional signaling load to support the RRC connection can be imposed on the wireless network.
Typically, a serving base station of a wireless network can release an established RRC connection to a wireless communication device in order to reallocate radio resources of the radio access network, to reduce network signaling load overhead that may result from the wireless communication device remaining in the RRC connected mode when not actively transmitting data, and/or to reduce unnecessary power drain by the wireless communication device in the RRC connected mode with no attendant data to send or receive. The wireless network can determine a length of time of data and/or signaling inactivity after which the RRC connection can be released. In general, the wireless network can use a particular value for the inactivity timeout period, regardless of the type of data service for which a data radio bearer is established. For example, a fixed 10 second inactivity timeout period is often used by wireless networks. This relatively long inactivity timeout period value can be appropriate for certain types of data sessions, e.g., Internet browsing, for which downlink and uplink data are interspersed with inactive time periods. However, for some data services, such as short message service (SMS) transmission, after completion of a relatively short data transmission, the data service can have no additional data to transmit over the data radio bearer associated with the established RRC connection. With a fixed value for the inactivity timeout period, the RRC connection can be maintained longer than required by the underlying data service. As such, applying a common fixed value for the inactivity timeout can result in the wireless communication device remaining in the RRC connected mode longer than needed in many instances, thus unnecessarily increasing battery consumption by the wireless communication device.